For those of you are familiar with the struggles that this wiki has faced with regards to fan theories, I'd like to call to attention one of core policies that Wikipedia operates by:
- The basic idea is that any material presented as a fact must be explicitly stated by a reliable source. It explicitly forbids "analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources". This means that you can't read into the intentions of the source materials, derive your conclusions, and present them as fact. IMO, the majority of disputed content on this wiki fails to meet this standard.
- When considering the disputed AlexShepherd contributions through the lens of "no original research", the arguments fall apart completely. As such, I think adopting this standard would be a good precaution towards preventing a reoccurence of this editing style in the future, whether it be due to Alex's bans being allowed to expire again or an editor with a similar viewpoint stepping in to fill the gap.
- We would not be the first Fandom site to incorporate "no original research" as a content policy. A quick search not only confirms this, but among the most prominent Fandom sites to adopt this stance is the Attribution policy of the Star Wars wiki .
It should be noted that most content policies do not soley rely upon "no original research". Wikipedia's three pillars are no original research, neutral point of view , and verifiability . While I'm leading into this discussion with the topic of no original research, it's probably worth visiting the topic of our content policy as a whole with regard to other wiki sites.
Here's how the infamous Chu-Chu Beastiality Example would look through the Wikipedia method:
- Verifiability: The fact that Chu-Chu has a romantic interest in Fei is directly supported by the in-game material. Despite this, there is no sexual context to the interactions. No direct citation of this fact is available.
- Neutral point of view: Does not strongly apply. Dissention is mostly related to whether the game materials actually support the conclusion.
- Original research: Fails, big time. It takes the nature of the desired relationship a step further than what the cited material supports. It requires that the supporter of the opinion put forth the idea that it was "implied" without being explicitly stated.
Am I making any sense here? Do others feel that policies like these would have helped to drive a lot of structure around why "fan theory" edits that the community has struggled with are unwanted? I wanted to shop this idea around a little bit and see if there was interest in formally adopting similar strategies.